In the bustling environment of a high school classroom, I often observe a phenomenon as subtle as it is revealing: young people, each seemingly immersed in the screen of their mobile phone. While checking their latest notifications, commenting on a new post, or quickly responding to a message, they await my first instruction of the class, «put away your devices.» And in that unsettling dynamic, a spontaneous conversation arises with a young person who manages to shift my preconceived ideas before they can settle into my repertoire of recurrent complaints. “Sister, there is something in the consecrated life that attracts me: it’s seeing them live fully!” Her words allowed me to discern two certainties that become a prelude to this article: on the one hand, young people see beyond the apparent, and on the other, they are in search of depth, not superficiality as we often believe. Each class makes me think that, in the face of youth communication through social networks, there are barriers we need to overcome together with them:
Moving from «surfing» interactivity to the depth of words: Social networks are a wide-open window to the most populated continent in the world, where responses are instant, attractive, anonymous, interactive, and addictive, catering to all our appetites, even the darkest and most harmful ones. Faced with this reality, today’s youth question with greater awareness that commitment cannot arise from content that disappears with a scroll, but rather from the beauty of building their inner world, inspired by the Spirit, which moves the heart, guides to full truth, and when known, makes one wiser, firmer, and more human. But, as the saints teach us, an inner life is not understood if it does not lead to commitment: «not in saying many prayers, but in much loving» (St. Teresa). Therefore, it is necessary to create a culture of digital silence as an attractive path to reach others, through the depth of words and not through superficial interactivity.
Moving from the «myopia» of pragmatism to the insight of utopia: From a pragmatic perspective, what is tangible and immediate is more «pleasing.» «What works,» what produces practical and concrete results, and from this point of view, young people traversing the digital continent might disappoint us. Hence, it is worth finely highlighting the beauty of the utopian, of not getting trapped in the here and now to the point of losing sight of what we could be. Therefore, we need to learn to dream with young people, just as Christ did, launching into utopian visions of life. The insight of utopia is not about living in naiveties but about that capacity to dream, create, and aspire to much for ourselves and others as a first step that allows for a committed life that can restore to the Gospel that provocative force often lost in daily living. A utopia that moves us from the immediate, the useful, and tangible to evangelical ideals pointing toward a more humane future, and from there, the words of writer Eduardo Galeano make sense: “Utopia is on the horizon. I walk two steps, it moves two steps away and the horizon shifts ten steps further. So, what is the purpose of utopia? That’s it, it serves to walk.”
Moving from cyber hedonism to the proposal of asceticism: Young people daily receive a very deceptive “good news”: You can have it all, you can live it all, you can try it all, and there is always a way back! The happiness they receive is very much associated with success and pleasure (as a hedonistic imperative), and even the contemporary image of beauty is tremendously reduced to the physical, it is somehow the tyranny of Instagram. Therefore, it is worth announcing the Good News that does not stop putting the cross at the center of its proposal; in evangelical happiness, suffering and the capacity to renounce are included not as a limit but as a liberating force. It is not about saying that life is only suffering, but that in life there is suffering, and people who suffer are also happy, and there will be moments where delaying satisfaction will be healthy even for the soul, because we cannot abandon the idea that anything we want to last and take root will involve effort and sacrifice, and that is not bad, it is human. Therefore, we need to recover the value of asceticism as a way to order everything that disorders the good, beautiful, and true in us. This must be a valid proposal for the youth of our time because, unlike the world’s attractive «good news,» you can’t have it all! And whoever wants to sell us another idea will make us very unhappy because real life demands doses of sacrifice, renunciation, and only when we understand this dynamic will we live less frustrated, less incomplete, and certainly much more committed to ourselves and others. In the words of José María Rodríguez Olaizola (2014), we would say: The Gospel must be understood from its polarities. If you stick to one part, you mutilate it. An evangelical polarity is «death and resurrection»; the Gospel is not a mere cross. But, at the same time, the triumphalist discourse of resurrection without going through the concrete passion and the cross is a bucolic evasion. It’s both things. Let us not stop believing that young people are capable of overcoming these barriers and moving from the media attraction of social networks to a more connected and committed life.
Sr. Beatriz Iliana Quintero Pérez